{"id":7479,"date":"2017-12-22T11:42:06","date_gmt":"2017-12-22T11:42:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/letters1916.ie\/learn\/?p=7479"},"modified":"2018-10-25T13:37:52","modified_gmt":"2018-10-25T13:37:52","slug":"featured-transcriber-clara-mcdonald","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/letters1916.ie\/learn\/featured-transcriber-clara-mcdonald","title":{"rendered":"Meet our transcribers: Clara McDonald"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Clara
Clara McDonald, transcriber<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Born and raised in the sunny south east of Ireland (it’s more like the mildly warm south east, but that just doesn’t have the same ring to it), Clara is a twenty-five-year-old full time administrator and part time Early Childhood Education student. Aside from working and studying she can also be found performing with Wexford Light Opera Society<\/a> from time to time. Clara is also a Gold Gaisce award<\/a> candidate, through which she came across the Letters 1916-1923 Project.<\/p>\n

Clara told us about her participation with the Letters 1916-1923 project.<\/p>\n

\n

I first came across the Letters 1916-1923 project via the Volunteer Ireland website<\/a> when looking for a community volunteering project I could get involved with as part of my gold Gaisce award.<\/p>\n

\"Gaisce<\/a>Gaisce is an Irish word which means \u2018great achievement\u2019. The Gaisce Award is a challenge from the President of Ireland to young people to dream big and realise their potential. There are three levels of Gaisce \u2013 Bronze, Silver and Gold. The Gold Award<\/a> is the highest level and anyone between the ages of 17-25 can apply.<\/p>\n

Knowing I needed a volunteering outlet which fit around my full-time job, part time studies and more than occasional rehearsals I was sceptical of finding something that I would really enjoy, but I was instantly drawn to the idea of the Letters 1916-1923<\/a> project. The letters, postcards and notes are such a wonderful window into the Ireland of\u00a0time gone by.<\/p>\n

The simplicity of love letters and letters to family\u00a0help to show the resilience of Ireland and her people during a time of huge change both home and abroad; while the business letters show us how much the world of business and banking have changed in a hundred years. (You think your internet banking is slow? Try waiting on a letter from your bank to confirm monies had been lodged to your account more than a week before).<\/p>\n

\"Letter<\/a>
Letter from Patrick Pearse to Seamus Doyle<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By far my favourite items of correspondence to transcribe are those associated with county Wexford and its inhabitants, such as this letter from Patrick Pearse (1879-1916) to Seamus Doyle<\/a>, a member of the Irish Volunteers in Enniscorthy, County Wexford. This letter refers to the use of Pearse’s image on the cover of a publication. Pearse\u00a0writes that an image of Robert Emmet would be more suitable and ‘After I am hanged my portrait will be interesting, but not before.’ He also writes about travel arrangements for a trip to Wexford.<\/p>\n

Having transcribed & reviewed over seventy-five letters since joining the project in December 2016, I look forward to the many more letters awaiting me in the libraries of the Letters of 1916 Project.<\/p>\n

\n

Thanks Clara!<\/p>\n

If you would like us to introduce you to the users of Letters 1916-1923<\/a>, just\u00a0email us<\/a>\u00a0to find out how.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clara McDonald is one of the many people across Ireland who support the Letters 1916-1923 project as volunteers. Read why Clara joined us, and how transcribing letters has changed her perception of the past. Continue reading Meet our transcribers: Clara McDonald<\/span>→<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":8375,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[274,7],"tags":[245],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/letters1916.ie\/learn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Featured-Image_meet-volunteers.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/letters1916.ie\/learn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7479"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/letters1916.ie\/learn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/letters1916.ie\/learn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/letters1916.ie\/learn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/letters1916.ie\/learn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7479"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/letters1916.ie\/learn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9362,"href":"https:\/\/letters1916.ie\/learn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7479\/revisions\/9362"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/letters1916.ie\/learn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/letters1916.ie\/learn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/letters1916.ie\/learn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/letters1916.ie\/learn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}